MP Assembly polls: Congress finalizes candidates for 194 seats

Indore: The Congress has finalized its candidates for 194 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh and will announce their names from October 25 onwards. The state, having a total of 230 seats, will go to polls on November 25.

"The Congress Central Election Committee has given a green signal to party candidates on 194 seats and the party will announce its list of candidates in a planned manner from October 25 onwards," party's state in-charge secretary Sanjay Nirupam said in Indore.

He also said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi will address a number of poll rallies in the state before the elections.

However, he did not provide details of their proposed visits to the state.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will address two rallies tomorrow at Rahatgarh in Sagar district and Indore, he said.

Taking a dig at BJP, Nirupam said it was unfortunate that the saffron party has only one leader (BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi) in its fold while Congress has a long list of such leaders to whom people wanted to listen.

He said the party will corner the state BJP government on issues of roads, power, corruption, malnutrition, poor law and order and condition of farmers.

The state Lokayukta has registered cases against 13 ministers in the state, but the government led by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has not given its permission for the trial of the cases, which means, morally Chouhan too is involved with his ministers on the issue, Nirupam alleged.